Media Trackers is able to confirm that 43 current employees of the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s office signed the petition to recall Governor Scott Walker. A total of 70 names on iverifytherecall.com matched the names of current employees at the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s office, but not all could be completely confirmed at the time of publication. The employees signing the Walker recall petition range in stature from a Deputy District Attorney, to at least 19 Assistant District Attorneys, and a host of support staff.

Highest ranking among the officials signing the Walker recall petition was Deputy District Attorney Lovell Johnson Jr. Johnson is one of five Deputy District Attorney’s who report directly to DA John Chisholm.

In addition to DDA Johnson Jr., Media Trackers was able to confirm that 19 Assistant District Attorneys (employee status provided by the Milwaukee DA as of March 26, 2012) signed the Walker recall at the time of publication.

Chisolm’s office attempts to defend itself by saying none of the people named were directly involved in the John Doe investigation. However, when nearly a quarter of the staff are actively supporting political efforts to remove from office the probable target of an investigation, it casts a cloud on the entire investigation. Even more so when you consider how this “secret” John Doe investigation has been leaky from the beginning. Instead of a fair and politically impartial investigation, it’s impossible for Chisolm’s investigation to continue without the motives for every decision by his office getting questioned with just cause.

I’m shocked, just shocked, that you don’t feel that workers are entitled to the civil service protections and rights that Walker promised would stay intact after Act 10. I’m also really disappointed you don’t mention your affiliation with MacIver, or MacIver’s ties to Grebe, Walker’s campaign chair. I thought an unbiased, good writer would include that.

Is there anyone left, or on the Left, that does not understand that I write freelance (oh, wait, you don’t) for the MacIver Institute? Yet somehow this most tenuous of ties did not stop me from the criticisms I made previously.

Ironically, as a former employee of Walker, you have a more biased connection than I do.

James: You (general use) are really taking this too far. Let me ask: If a database of peoples’ votes in the last election was available would that be fair game for the hysteria you’ve created? Next thing you’ll be denouncing those who shop at the Dollar Store in favor of Target. It’s all ridiculous and very dangerous.

Whether people petition their government at some point during their adult, working lives (a constitutional right, right?) or whether they vote or write a letter to the Editor or express an opinion to a neighbor over the back fence, or if they withhold all expression of personal perception until they explode at age 55 – everyone still has an opinion, everyone has a unique, subjective experience of the world. No human being is without personal opinion. The surgeon, the cop, the pastor or priest or shaman, or judge -all have ’em.
The point of professionalism on the job, and the point of fairness in parenting and the point of having a following Just Laws is, that you do your damnedest to write good rules and then people follow them.
That’s actually the point of all the Evil Regulation the Right seems to hate so much, it’s an attempt to recognize human impulses and the dregs of greed and horror people are prone to sink to, and to make laws and moral code that address those destructive tendencies.
The prosecutors will have a political opinion whether they express them or not. Whether they sign that petition or not. IN fact, given that they have un-earthed cheating, lies and stealing from Veterans I suspect the people working on this investigation have a lot more reasons to have opinions than the rest of us, and with cause. Never-the-less, rules remain, and these people must follow their professional and legal guidelines as the go forward with this investigation.
That is how emotional, chaotic human beings have devised a method of interacting in a society (I was going to say a “communal” society but that would set too many synapses firing into petit mal seizures and too many people would drop right to the floor and all this typing will have been for naught)
So yeah, ethics and rules of fair play, regulations, commandments, laws, umpires, Moms, Brownie leaders and Grandmas. They all have nice suggestions on how we can all navigate our messy emotional angry little selves in spite of our messy angry emotional little selves. Cops on crimes scenes probably need to throw up (literally) over the stuff they see, yet, they proceed according to the rules and it works. They write down what they did so other people can review that behavior and provide more support for fairness and ethical behavior.

Jeff, this is where you are clearly wrong. Show me where Media Trackers said any of the five prosecutors signed the recall petition. I’ll give you a hint: they didn’t. I’m not going to defend every report from Media Trackers anymore than I would defend everything that appears in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. But this is a clear-cut case of you misstating what they wrote. You can try to defend Chisolm’s office after this debacle (I really don’t see how) but even Dan Bice is reporting that what Media Trackers reported is correct.

By the way, for those of you who don’t have a problem with roughly a quarter of Chisolm’s staff signing the recall petitions, we’re supposed to believe that one staffer working on a campaign completely unrelated to Scott Walker somehow is supposed to taint him, but an entire office full of people publicly supporting the recall of Walker is not supposed to taint the investigation by Chilsom’s staff. Give me a break. What a bunch of partisan hypocrites.

Chisolm blew it by not making sure his staff stayed out of the partisan politics. Don’t blame Media Trackers for the partisan smell that covers this investigation, blame Chisolm.

I wonder if the unprofessional staff has damaged the current prosecutions. I’d hate to be one of the five prosecutors that were supposedly above the partisan political nature of the rest of the office. They’re probably writing their thank you notes to the rest of the office right now.

Jeff Christensen Reply:April 10th, 2012 at 1:27 pm

Actually James you are dead wrong on this one.

It would be a violation of employees rights (speech and association) for Chisholm’s office not to allow employees to sign. Legally, there is no basis for any claim of bias on this one. Chisholm himself could’ve legally signed and it wouldn’t have mattered.

Once again, the sun rises and Media Trackers does nothing more than create a false & faulty talking point.

Tom Riddle Reply:April 10th, 2012 at 9:02 pm

Seriously? Are signers of the recall petition going to argue that their actions should be consequence free?

The people who work in Chisholm’s office are adults and should exercise just some modicum of professional judgment; it’s not like the petitions just jumped up at these people and the signers were powerless to stop it.

Yes… they are well within their rights to sign the petition. Yes… there are no work rules prohibiting signing the petition. Neither, however, requires the rest of the public to accept and not question their motives and wonder if they can be unbiased in their official capacity.

If they want to be above criticism then they should have exercised the right to NOT sign the recall petition, understanding that by not signing, they could have remained above the fray and people would not question the biases of the ENTIRE staff of the DA’s office.

These people, in their self-interested and selfish drive to advance their agenda have now sacrificed the integrity of not just the current John Doe investigation, but of DA Chisholm himself and any other investigation in which a politician may be investigated by his office.

Next time DA Chisholm comes to Madison seeking resources or legislation, how inclined, as a matter of human nature, will Republican legislators (and perhaps even Governor Walker) be to help?

Way to go, guys. Your short-sightedness and unprofessionalism has put DA Chisholm and and the rest of the staff in a very real, precarious position.

KK Reply:April 10th, 2012 at 6:51 pm

If 25% of the staff signed the recall petition, how do the demographics differ from the general voting-age population of WI?

I put no more weight on the signing of a recall petition than I do on the signing of nomination papers. Government attorneys have signed the latter for years without coming under scrutiny for doing so. I consider this a manufactured issue.

Really. Publicly petitioning to recall an elected official is the same as signing someone’s nomination papers? Signing a recall petition after the DA’s office is investigating the staff of the official that is the subject of the recall, that’s not an issue?

BlueWaukesha Reply:April 28th, 2012 at 9:35 pm

No, it IS NOT an issue. If anything, the fact that only 25% signed the recall should make you MORE trusting of the DA office’s impartiality, not less. 75% did not sign it. Considering that the electorate in WI is split roughly 50/50 for or against Walker, us Dems should be the ones upset at the DA office, not you. Give it a rest already. Your grasping at straws and it makes you look dishonest and esperate.

The accusation is that professionals—in this case Milwaukee DA’s—are prejudiced because of a particular action taken—in this case signing a petition. Therefore, they automatically have “an axe to grind” and are playing “petty politics” to “further an agenda”…according to partisans on the right.

Now, using this same rationale in an oranges to oranges comparison, since apparently some conservatives, most notably the blogger, are focusing on adhering to impartiality, then Justices Scalia and Thomas ought to undergo the same scrutiny for attending and speaking at fundraisers sponsored by conservative groups who have appeared or you will appear before them in court cases on matters that the two individuals share similar ideas on. Justices are to adhere to the most strictest of codes.

After all, if the right is so concerned about associations rendering a person incapable of fair treatment and performing their job objectively, that even the hint of impropriety must be taken seriously, I’m sure everyone here can get on board in denouncing the actions taken by Scalia and Thomas, lest they be deemed a hypocrite and a partisan willing to “give a free pass”.

I find it odd that the same ilk that finds nothing wrong with a prosecutors office being of one political mindset (and display frequent knowledge and acceptence of how all people are subject to all sorts of fraudulent dealings) are the very same that think it quite out of anyone’s moral reach to commit voter fraud; thereby negating any reason for a voter ID requirement.
C’mon guys, if you’re going to try to prove you’re educated by using flowing words when you write, don’t ruin it by trumping that proof with evidence of just being plain ignorant! THINK like the rest of us, will ya’?

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